On a literary pilgrimage to Kolkata’s College Street
As someone who hails from Delhi, a city bustling with political discourse and historical gravitas, the idea of visiting Kolkata’s College Street had long fascinated me. Called Boi Para (book town) locally, it is more than just a marketplace; it is a cultural phenomenon. On a crisp winter morning, I boarded a flight to Kolkata with only one purpose: to spend a full day in the legendary book haven.
College Street was unlike anything I had experienced in Delhi. While the Sunday book bazaar in Mahila Haat near Delhi Gate has its own charm, there was no beating the raw intellectual energy that coursed through College Street. As soon as I arrived in this largest book market in India and the largest second-hand book market in the world, I was struck by the sheer density of bookstalls—hundreds of them, stretching endlessly on both sides of the road, manned by sellers who knew the exact location of any book — be it a rare Bengali translation of Dostoevsky or a weathered copy of Malgudi Days or Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie, without even looking.
People of all ages didn’t just buy books — they argued about them, recommended them to strangers, and flipped through pages with a reverence.
I began my exploration with Bengali classics — Rabindranath Tagore’s famous Ghare Baire (The Home and the World), Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Srikanta, and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s Pather Panchali. I also picked up a collection of Satyajit Ray’s detective stories — rarely found in Delhi bookstores.
In the English literature section, there were paperbacks stacked with fading spines, vintage hardcovers of Hemmingway, Dickens, Tolstoy, Virginia Woolf, Naipaul and Amitava Ghosh, local publications, books on anything and everything under the sun. I felt like a child in a fantastical forest, each turn revealing new treasures. And also discovered that you have to bargain to get a good discount here.
What surprised me most was the atmosphere. Students in uniforms, elderly professors with cloth bags, curious children flipping through comics—everyone belonged here. The day was punctuated with cups of strong, sugary tea served in bhar (clay cups) and the scent of old pages mixing with the tang of street food.
By late evening, my backpack was stuffed and my heart full. As I sipped one last cup of coffee, I realised College Street was not just a destination—it was a state of mind. It reminded me that amidst the stress of modern life, there are still corners in the world where books hold sway, where ideas matter, and where curiosity is a shared language.
That day in Kolkata felt like a pilgrimage—one I will return to again and again, if not physically, then certainly in spirit.
Aditya Mukherjee, New Delhi
Nation